In my case, The Selfish Gene was absolutely essential. Its impact on me was enormous -- I spent a couple of years just to update myself after reading it. This book is the primary cause of my interest in AGI, FAI, naturalism, reductionism, science and rationality -- I definitely think it should be on the list.
Added: There may be another important effect to this book. When I was reading it, I had a strong feeling that this book is capable of utterly destroying religious and other non-naturalistic worldviews in readers who can reason more or less straight -- and that without explicitly mentioning religion or any gods at all. I never was a theist, but since religion keeps popping up here on LW, it apparently still is an important issue -- which is another reason why I support keeping the book on this list.
I fully agree with your statement. The Selfish Gene triggered my rational awakening and may have been the single most important book I've read in my entire life. I think the real significance of this book is that afterwards you really have a rather deep understanding of what life actually is and what it isn't.
Now most readers here won't need to read his book for that purpose, but I think it is a very unique book one should read eventually, even despite already being a rationalist. There most certainly are more structured books out there if one wanted to le...
This has been discussed in passing several times, but I thought it might be worthwhile to collect a list of recommended reading for new members and/or aspiring rationalists. There's probably going to be plenty of overlap with the SingInst reading list, but I think the purposes of the two are sufficiently distinct that a separate list is appropriate.
Some requests:
Happy posting!
PS - Is there a "New Readers Start Here" page, or something similar (aside from "About")? I seem to remember someone talking about one, but I can't find it.
1"Everything Eliezer has ever written (since 2001)... twice!" while likely a highly beneficial suggestion for every single human being in existence, is not an acceptable entry. A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation is fine. If you're not sure whether to classify something as "an essay" or "a blog post", there is a little-known trick to distinguish the two: essays contain small nuggets of vanadium ore, and blog posts contain shreds of palladium. Alternatively, just use your best judgement.